it's passover - skip those bitter herbs and who can afford lamb anyways?

Well, the general feeling today is "p-ed" off... for no good reason really. Just don't feel like liking people today. I logged on to facebook and got even more p'ed off by the crap people had posted- so I took much pleasure at deleting a few more 'friends'. Hmm, there really is something about narrow-minded people that just infuriates me. Wow, who am I to judge? I don't know, but I do like to discuss opinions - but to some people, this means: I have the truth and the only truth, if you disagree then you are wrong! Sounds like fundamentalism here! And the harm closed-mindedness causes is amazing. I came across a blog written by some self-proclaimed chiropractor health guru dude, you can sum it up in one word: misinformation. For more info on chiropracters, trust Eddie Izzard. :o) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUwnkTnHrtI

I am 100% for healthy living, organic food, exercise, very sparse use of pharmaceuticals and careful attention to nutrition. However, in the event that the body suffers a grave insult, someone reorganising your bones and feeding you super antioxidant juice is not going to fix it. One has to match the pieces properly! This genius chappy copied and pasted (great effort!) some research saying how bad Simvastatin, a cholesterol lowering drug, was and how many drug interactions it had. That was it. The take-home message the readers would get: do not ever take cholesterol lowering drugs.
I have seen the adverse effects of this drug first hand. From severe acute pancreatitis to complete loss of motor function of lower limbs without forgetting the more common rise in liver transaminases. Ok, fair enough, no one is denying it.
The sad reason it is still so commonly prescribed is that it is cheaper for insurance companies. While working in the UK, one had to get special approval from a consultant in order to prescribe a safer statin drug such as Atorvastatin.

What bothered me most about this blog was that there was no mention of 1-the risks of high cholesterol, 2-how to take measures to lower it without a magic pill, 3-all the research showing how high dose statins are actually beneficial following and preventing a cardiac infarct. So basically, the way this was presented, it just picked a few things and made a headline out of it... how many people will read this and take it to face value and simply quit their medication with potentially fatal effects?
 Talk about misinformation versus education... I won't even start with the whole antioxidant fad... you really think that anything so delicate as an antioxidant particle, put down your throat will survive the acidic environment of the stomach? Of course eating blueberries and the such will have positive effects on the body because they are packed with vitamins and minerals, but antioxidants?? Save your money!


Well, for the trivia part, any of you remember who and what 'Passover' was? It was the first chicken - who turned out to be a nice handsome rooster - who was born in our incubator when we were still living in Belgium. I think that was the first and the last time I found a chicken cute.

So for dinner, let's skip the meat and go for nice easy peasy prawns. You might want to make sure you have curry paste and coconut cream before you start, but it's an awesome and tasty dinner served over some instant thai noodles. Enjoy!

Thai Prawn Curry 

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tsp root ginger fresh 
• 1-2 tsp Thai red curry paste (we used Sharwood's)
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 50g sachet coconut cream
• 400g prawns, frozen 
• coriander, chopped, to serve (optional) 

1. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan. Tip in the onion and ginger, then cook for a few mins until softened. Stir in the curry paste, then cook for 1 min more. Pour over the chopped tomatoes and coconut cream. Bring to the boil, then leave to simmer for 5 mins, adding a little boiling water if the mixture gets too thick.
2. Tip in the prawns, then cook for 5-10 mins more, depending on how large they are. Serve alongside some plain rice and sprinkle with a little chopped coriander, if you like.